Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018. Michael Donkor

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СКАЧАТЬ the water. ‘Kwabena?! Aba! Eh? You want to be shy? Adɛn?’

      Nothing. Nothing but stillness.

      ‘There are, erm, tarantulas also for us to show you? Erm.’

      ‘I hate spiders. And anyway, I have spiders at my house, at my Aunty and Uncle house where I do clean, we do cleaning, Ino be so, Belinda? They, they come into bathroom. They don’t mind the cockroaches. Neither do we.’ Mary shifted her attention between Belinda and Priscilla dizzily and then became strict. ‘They not our real Uncle or Aunty, by the way. But you know how we have to use these words for our elders out of a tradition and respect and I am a 100 per cent respectful child.’

      Belinda wondered what sort of companion she would have chosen for herself, if a choice had been offered. Half a year ago, when the driver took Belinda from Adurubaa and from Mother, then made his unexpected stop near Baniekrom, what if some other girl had stepped into the car and gently introduced herself?

      The water tore apart. The three of them staggered backwards. Diamonds jumped and splashed as Kwabena dashed forward. He snapped at the fence and Belinda gulped. His roaming eyes were massive, dark planets. His fat, knobbed tail whipped, sending up water again as Mary screamed. His long jaw flipped and crashed shut with a sound like falling bricks or breaking glass. He scuttled back.

      ‘I didn’t even get to be taking one single picture,’ Mary moaned, pointing the camera at the ripples Kwabena had left. Belinda did not breathe. He was enormous. He had not yet shot out of the water but she knew he could leap and reach high enough to brush the trees and drop onto her, onto all of them. They would be crushed. Mangled beneath his rough belly.

      ‘You see that bucket over there? Listen, do you see that bucket over there?’ Belinda heard Priscilla softening. Mary, giving in to her tears now, sobbed. ‘Listen: in that bucket are bits of meat – collect it. I didn’t want to waste, but …’

      Belinda said nothing as Mary ran to a nearby hut and returned with a dripping chunk.

      ‘Good girl! See your friend? Not so courageous and bold like you. She seeming like she has come across a ghost, or is in preparation for the vomiting.’ Belinda tried to find it funny. ‘When he comes up again, you throw this meat at him, OK? OK then. Here we go. Kwabena, Kwabena –’

      Priscilla paused, tapped Belinda on the shoulder. ‘Help me, madam? Madam?’

      Belinda added her calls, irritated by a wavering in her voice that wouldn’t shift. Within seconds a blur of grey, brown, pink and green rose again, thrashing even more this time.

      ‘Throw, throw!’

      With a bark, Mary launched the meat. It hit Kwabena’s snout and he began tearing at flesh before he and the red block disappeared into bubbles. Belinda gasped.

      ‘That. That. That. The most brilliant thing!’

      Belinda looked over at Mary’s cheeks. They were streaked with tears, mucus, sweat, water, blood.

      The zoo’s canteen was a long, narrow room painted in sludgy tones, filled with rows of wooden tables. Each bore a matching island of condiments, bent cutlery and a miniature Ghanaian flag. Rusted ceiling fans dropped dust on the customers below. No one complained. A plump attendant wearing a splattered apron manned the till beneath a calendar, which, for the month of April, showed Jesus bursting through light. A chewing stick drooped from one corner of the woman’s mouth. A thin cat lay at her feet. Somewhere in the back a radio crackled silly jingles into the oiliness.

      Beneath their table, Belinda crossed her ankles, hoping to control her quaking thigh. Her plan seemed to work until she started fidgeting with the ketchup’s lid instead. She rattled the can of Coke and watched Mary push Red-Red around her plate.

      ‘Finish all, Mary, to grow up big and strong, eh?’

      ‘You know Red-Red it always take me a long time to eat because –’

      ‘Mary – eat not talk, wa te?’

      Mary wriggled off her seat. She began bouncing the ball Priscilla had convinced them to buy from the gift shop, along with mugs, rubbers, T-shirts, posters, bracelets, catalogues and sun hats that were all stored in heavy bags that spilled at their feet.

      Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch.

      Belinda considered taking the ball away, though the waitress who delivered more serviettes appeared undisturbed by Mary’s playing. And now Mary bounced it on the vacant table opposite. The ball knocked over a pot of salt. Mary ran to tidy up, then continued to bounce it on an empty seat.

      Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch. Pleasure shone across Mary’s face.

      ‘You are not hungry, Mary?’

      Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch.

      ‘Mary?’

      Two old men sat to the right of Belinda, one much larger than the other, both engrossed in Oware. They lifted and dropped the grey counters delicately. Each of the bigger man’s moves began with a chuckle. Arching forward, his competitor hummed. Belinda noticed the piled pesewas between them. A group of white tourists pointed at the game. There were five of them, possibly students, nibbling boiled groundnuts off a large map. She heard them talking about how friendly the ‘locals’ were. Mary’s rhythm slowed as she threw the ball at the ceiling, zigzagging around the fans.

      Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch.

      Belinda shovelled steaming rice into her mouth and saw the slimmer player getting up from his seat and pacing around the table, checking his lot from different angles.

      Boing. Catch. Boing.

      Mary, at the counter now, made the cat screech. The waitress hummed. Belinda cracked two knuckles. Mary got one of the white tourists to his feet. His blond hair flew up as Mary threw the ball and he followed it.

      Ta. Ta. Tap. Boing. Catch. Boing. Catch.

      ‘When you came from your mother’s vagina,’ Belinda heard, ‘it is pressing hard on your own head and making your brain stupid – too easy for me to win this!’

      The slimmer man bobbed around, his fat challenger flaring his nostrils.

      Boing. Catch. Boing. Ca–

      The student leapt forward now, his loose, tie-dyed shirt inflating as he picked up Mary and chucked her into the air. The ball rolled outside. The mad cat pursued it.

      ‘MARY!’

      Mary landed. Everyone stopped. The white man stood still. The old men forgot their game.

      Heat ran across Belinda’s chest. ‘Come. And. Eat.’

      Mary apologised to the student, who blushed and shook Mary’s hand.

      ‘Where’s the ball gone?’ Mary asked as she sat.

      ‘We can get another one, eh? For now, you just eat.’

      ‘OK, OK. I don’t know why you talking all rude and quick to me.’

      ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to. I don’t mean СКАЧАТЬ